A bit over a month since I decided to end development of Shrike's Mines & Missiles (after 7 years, it was about time), I'm now able to start talking about the long-term project that's replacing it: Elemental Shift

Elemental Shift will come in two main parts: The first is the resources, items, devices, etc. I may or may not make this into a library...I haven't decided yet. Running this in SOTP (possibly also EP) will override vanilla items as per SM&M++ and add the extra stations and enemies into the game. This may or may not include an optional add-on for Corporate Command users. It's basically SM&M++ with some things ripped out, everything modernised and future-proofed, and a few extra features.

The second part will be an adventure extension. I have rough ideas for it (plot, characters, some of the key plot missions), but at this point I'm focusing on getting the functional elements working first. Then I'll try working up. I'm no coder, so this will be hard. The player character will be a former Commonwealth citizen, now forced into a life on the run as an Outlaw. While I do have a dramatic arc planned....which I am not sharing.....there will be no Domina V Oracus stuff, no alien influence, etc. I've been of a mind for a while that we need a good villain who isn't god-addled. And I have some truly wonderful ideas of how to do that.

IF that adventure extension works out (and there's a high chance it won't, let's be honest. This is not my first "yes it's time to do an adventure" project), I will probably release it via Multiverse as a registered extension, with a secondary release on steam in the 2030's once George fixes the workshop implementation. It will probably not mesh or work with TBR/TSB/Renegade, simply because I need to confine the playable area for it to work with my current concept. The core code though will work on an SOTP game with those mods, however. Compatibility beyond those big three is beyond my ability to test, and will be a "at your own risk" endeavor. Given it's basically SM&M++, there should be very few issues.

At the moment the first part of the mod is going...well enough. It can't be loaded yet, but I've assembled 15 out of the roughly 20-25 modules that will make up the first version. Given how long SM&M++ got in it's final versions.....there is a lot to go through. There is a lot of old code to revisit, revamp, or remove. I've also updated my armors slightly for 1.8, removed some alterations to vanilla armor, and updated all solar panel devices to the new system (this also makes them far more useful, especially the smallest one). I've also added some new tinker weapons in preparation to reworking their recipe lists entirely. This includes the quadruple TeV9 as their ultimate weapon, so it should be fun.

I truly hope that this is one of those adventure ideas that do not get starved of creativity/motivation/time or just somehow develop a severe case of [Future Release]. Many ideas get written down now but often they remain [Future Release] for some time because there's only one person working on them; I want to change that. PM me if you need any code or documentation help; I want to make sure that we get more released adventure mods.

I truly hope that this is one of those adventure ideas that do not get starved of creativity/motivation/time or just somehow develop a severe case of [Future Release]. Many ideas get written down now but often they remain [Future Release] for some time because there's only one person working on them; I want to change that. PM me if you need any code or documentation help; I want to make sure that we get more released adventure mods.

Thank you. There's certainly some of your prior work that interests me greatly. When I'm in a position to do some of the more challenging (to me) things I'll definitely get in touch.

In short, I had several months of extremely bad mental health in the first half of this year. Dropping SM&M++ development was part of my coping system. Unfortunately, modernising the code was....rather more difficult than I'd thought. However these days I've had a few months of (relatively) good times. So I'm going to resume work. Scope is TBD: to start off with I'm going to try modernising my old code and stripping out parts that aren't needed (some of which I'll use to infrom things I'm writing from scratch as a community contribution for the outlaw miners). I'll also see about getting a version of SM&M++ out for Transcendence 1.7. It won't work properly with the 1.8 alphas: some things (notably solar panels) have changed and would need a rewrite.

Well, it's been more than a year, so I should probably provide some sort of update. This has been another lost year for me, but during the times I haven't been having serious mental health problems, I've made good progress (and AP ended up breaking up ES into modules for me, which helped a lot).

The first part of Elemental Shift, comprising overhauls and new items, ships and factions, is getting close to a releasable condition. It's not quite ready, but I'm focusing on getting it good enough for George to run through on his livestreams. Watching that should give me the playtesting info I need to polish it a little more for the public release.

Here's what you can expect in the first public release:

Massive increases in the variety of guards and civilian traffic in Commonwealth space.

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Tweaks and changes to 42 core vessels and 28 stations

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Nine new playerships based on the Elemental Shift version of vanilla vessels, and one entirely original vessel for advanced players

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Over 80 new weapons, with changes, tweaks, and alterations to more than 40 vanilla weapons and missiles

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55 new variations on existing vessels, both friendly and hostile

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29 brand new ships featuring art by AssumedPseudonym and Aury. (It would be 35 but I've had to drop everything that Xephyr did art for due to problems with the sprites)

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22 new or variant space stations

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7 new autons, and changes to most of the vanilla ones to create a progression system that lasts most of the game.

Work continues, with this coming week largely dedicated to polish, balancing, and test runs. Here's me loading up on autons using an exploit in the core game (bulk-buying unidentified autons at a low price).

The 2M battle auton is a civilian version of a lategame military craft. it's the most powerful civilian auton that most players will be able to bulk buy (the 2M/a Aegis is considerably more expensive), and makes a useful workhorse for Constellation players. It sports a heavy particle beam weapon, an R1 deflector and reasonably capable armor. The military 3M model (not in this picture) from which it is derived is visually very similar, but sports improved armor, extra reactor capacity, and an SAR/10 cannon. Aegis autons have also been expanded and rebalanced: you'll no longer find 50,000cr devices on a level 4 auton. Point defense autons now also gain increased armor capacity, but reduced reactor limits compared with a standard auton.

Urak autons are still in testing. They're extremely aggressive but rather fragile, as they can't mount a shield and don't really retreat from combat. In my current dev version it's possible to loot them from higher-level Urak stations, and from wrecked Destroyers (subject to change prior to release). They cannot generally be purchased. The advanced version is unique to Elemental Shift and serves as a more powerful station guard, while the standard Sentinel is effectively the same vessel you see in vanilla, modified to be usable as an auton.

This week also saw the return of six ships that were going to be cut from the mod, courtesy of some heroic re-rendering by AssumedPseudonym. The newly re-remade Sovereign Domain use modified Marauder vessels, but are a much more dangerous foe, packing starcannons and powerful particle and ion-based missiles. You'll find them late in the game, from about the middle of the Outer Realm.

Ion resistance will be somewhat important when fighting these folks

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As with many things, the Sovereign Domain aren't entirely finalised yet and still use some placeholders here and there. So they may well change before the mod goes public based on my testing.

While I'm waiting for a reply fromGeorge to some balancing questions, I've added a few more things to the Tinker crafting lists. Specifically, some gear intended for pilots of larger vessels with lots of utility slots:

-You can now craft autoturrets from point defense units. These will engage any hostile ship within 15ls of your ship, and don't count towards weapon slot limits. Unless you get very lucky and find one somewhere you'll need a targeting ROM for each unit you craft. They're both laser weapons, so they're more for swarm-busting than any serious work. They're certainly very nice to have though.
-There's a pair of new kinetic omni weapons in the crafting table as well, coming in at level 3 and level 5. They should make for an extra option for pilots who don't like lining up guns in the less agile vessels of Elemental Shift (or indeed vanilla or other mods)
-I've recently gone over my craftable shields and swapped a few of the enhanced recipes over to all-new 2-slot shields that serve as improved or "overcharged" versions of vanilla shields. These aren't balanced yet...it's one of the things I'm waiting for a reply for George on. This gives heavy vessels the option to boost their shield strength a bit at the cost of a device slot. Not bad for a freighter, generally a poor idea on a gunship.

There are some gunships that do make use of such shields, however.....

I'm now in the final stages of getting things ready for the first releasable version. Unfortunately a few things haven't worked out yet (some extra encounters, a few more NPC variants of common ships, item tuning, and problems with balancing certain weapons), so it may be a more limited release than I'd initially intended. Regardless, things are getting very close to 'done enough'. It'll be either this week or next, I think.

I've now shifted work over to Corporate Command assets. Elemental Shift currently requires corporate command (though I may see about options for a non-CC version) because a playership I wanted only exists in the libraries for it. As well as new versions of the Troglav, Likho and Anika (the latter two of which also go reclassified as gunships and re-statted to make more sense) I've implemented the Naga as a playership (with NPC variants) and rebalanced the existing playerships a bit to make them a bit easier to start off with. More fuel, slightly more money, slightly refined setups.

My reinterpretation of the Naga-class is a high-speed gunship from Earth Industries, based on a similar hull to the Scorpion (which is now a heavy gunship, replacing the Heavy IAV/Protector-class in the heavy gunship options). The key differences are size and speed: the Naga is incredibly light and has a top speed of 0.27c. However, it has very little cargo space, a mere 5 device slots (with no restrictions on device types), and a speed reduction on any armor other than ultra-light types. This makes it a fast and fragile fighter, relying on agility and precision to make up for a lack of hitpoints.

I'm currently waiting for George to reply to a PM on a balancing question, but I'm hoping that when this CC stuff is done I'll be able to move to a public release.